For about a year now, I've noticed a horribly annoying bug with Adobe Flash on the Windows platform: if your browser has been open for awhile, at some point, embedded Flash video (such as with YouTube) just stops working.
When you first open your browser, everything works great. Then at some random point, videos will only play for 2 seconds, without audio. After 2 seconds, all playback just stops.
I am not alone -- thousands if not millions of other users have the same exact problem. I'm nearly certain Adobe is the culprit; the bug is most acute on Firefox, but it also happens when using Internet Explorer.
I have been searching for a solution to this problem for months -- to no avail. It's one of those bugs that is so mind-numbingly stupid (the product stopping working!) that I just can't believe that Adobe hasn't fixed it. It is incredibly unprofessional, totally incompetent, and shows no respect whatsoever to users of Flash video.
So if anyone from Adobe happens to be reading this post: please get off your butt and fix this problem. Now.
Update: I just found a well-hidden beta version of Flash -- the Flash player version 10. I've downloaded it and installed it. I've got no idea if it'll be any more reliable, but it can't be much worse.
© Jed Lewison